Posted on 09/06/2023 3:03:27 PM PDT by nickcarraway
As another anniversary of 9/11 sits on the horizon, officials at Seneca East Local Schools are paying tribute.
“As I’m taking my last breaths of life, I realized that my life was over and I did something I hadn’t done in a long time, I closed my eyes and said a prayer,” Joe Torrillo, a retired lieutenant with the New York City Fire Department said.
Those prayers were answered. Torrillo, along with four other firefighters, were rescued from the rubble of the south tower collapse.
“About 25 minutes later they found a void and they found four of us. They pulled us out and they put me on a stretcher, and they ran, they put me on the deck of a boat on the Hudson River,” Torrillo said.
Torrillo, near death, thought he was safe, and then the north tower collapsed.
“The north tower collapsed on top of the boat, everybody jumped off the boat and into the river that was with me. I broke free from the stretcher and dove headfirst into the engine room and the north tower buried the boat on the river and I’m buried and suffocating a second time,” Torrillo said.
An hour later Torrillo was rescued from the engine room. Torrillo recalls the close friends he lost that day.
“I see some of the faces I was with just before the tower collapsed, some of them were buried a couple of feet away from me. They didn’t make it, but I made it,” Torrillo said. “343 members of the New York City fire department gave their lives that day.”
Along with retired Lt. Joe Torrillo speaking at Seneca East Local Schools, Mitch Mendler has his 9/11 World Memorial on display. It features a steel beam recovered from the south tower.
“This beam represents freedom, I don’t know how else to put that, because even though the towers came crashing down on the ground, the country obviously survived,” Mendler said.
Torrillo will speak on Wednesday, Sept. 6, starting at 7:15 p.m. inside Seneca East’s high school gymnasium.
As part of an entire week of remembrance, Seneca East will host the 9/11 World Memorial, Project 2978 which will be on display and open to the public from 10 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., September 7, 8, 10 and 11 as well and from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on September 9.
On Saturday, September 9, Seneca East Local Schools will play host to its annual 9/11 Tribute Cross Country Meet, the Stars, Stripes, & Lights. The meet is set to begin at 4:30 p.m. and races will go off throughout the night with the last one starting at 11:00 p.m. Over 2,000 runners will be participating during the evening. Each race starts with fireworks and there will be a special ceremony of remembrance at 7:30 p.m. with more fireworks following at 8:00 p.m. As part of the ceremony, 2,978 flags will be planted to represent the victims of 9/11. Skydivers will be landing during the playing of the National Anthem.
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Word is that JOE BIDEN is avoiding 9/11 events
What an incredible story by a brave man.
What a story. Breaks my heart what happened on 9/11/2001. It was unadulterated evil. The origins of the evil we know. The human perpetrators executing the demonic acts have yet to be brought to justice, but God’s got it.
It seems sometimes it’s just not time for a person to die.
Later, we heard the stories of incredible bravery by the first responders and civilians helping others at their own peril and how numbers of those men and women who gave their lives were piling up. May their memories be a blessing and may G-d continue to give them eternal peace for their sacrifice. This man was one of the lucky ones.
I wonder what he thinks of the Muslim call to prayer being broadcast on Fridays between 12:30 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. without obtaining a permit and despite sound restrictions in city neighborhoods. I wonder what he and his fellow retired pals think of that. Probably feels betrayed, and forgotten.
Good.
NY has rewarded him with the blaring cacophony of the raghead call to prayer...
At least the next time he is buried he’ll have the screams of a child rapist to act as a beacon out from under...
My youngest brother was working as a culinary instructor in a partnership with The Port Authority that owned the Trade Center and the NY State Department of Special Education for mentally challenged adults.
He was working with these students, all of whom were at some level of mental incapacity but they were great workers and eager to learn all about banquet preparation. They and my brother worked at The Sky Box Cafe in the South Tower.
The woman who ran the training program was also the manager for the cafe and wanted my brother to manage the Cafe but he had a better paying gig uptown.
He wasn’t at the Trade Center on 9/11 but all his students and the manager were.
They were all killed.
Over the years my brother has had nightmares about that day.
He say’s “I see my students faces. They’re calling to me, crying for help and I can’t help them’’.
btt
Deepest sympathy for their families- and to your brother as well :-(
What an utter horror:-(
Thank you. You’re very kind.
Wow didn’t know about his story, that the North Tower(parts) landed on the boat in the river.
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